How do you lure good ol’ RMR into writing a review? Well, send a bunch of out-of-this-world psych tracks and strange noisy objects garnished with an unspeakable record title to us. That’s how. And let’s face it. We have a weakness for well-written weirdness in an out-of-the-box setting. But submitting this kind of material can be a double-edged sword, of course. Because bad quality stuff filled with absurdities will be treated differently.
Yet, the RMR crew had no such qualms for eie. The band boasts a turbulent chatterbox item called – hold on to something – My Tongue Is Stuck to the Roof of My Mouth And That Is All I Can Think About. It takes serious chutzpah to waltz in and destroy our SEO ratings with a mile-long moniker. I reckon the music will live up to it. Punky grooves wanted, or else.
The band around Emilie Eie is a driven one. An act on a mission, fueled by “…their activism and personal values…” with little else stuffed in between. Activism, huh? Now, this can be fuel for outstanding outbreaks of musical geekery with a ton of refreshing authenticity to go with that. Or we may find ourselves in darker corners of humanity that we really don’t want to visit. And it is indeed the holy fervor of personal advocacy and not vendetta, fused with self-inflicted codes of conduct that drive them to cover thorny subjects such as rape culture and more.
My Tongue weaves and waves about the soundscape in refreshing squirts of musical geekery. An astute mix of pig-headed Punk, Heavy, and Psychedelic Rock, rolling in on often pretty juicy grungy vibes and imbibed with subdued gothic melancholy. A lot of the material reaches deep into the smelly underground where punk lives. Case in point, not many of the tracks seriously venture beyond three minutes of playtime. And the ones that do – such as Forget Your Name – don’t deserve the attention and should fall prey to the terrible carving knife.
But the record contains its fair share of juicy cuts, too. Hellcat – for instance – truly takes the cake. A rap-like, cheeky rant roaring in on sturdy rock vibes. One that sounds like some Taylor Swift pop thing that finally fell off her sugary mountain down into the drug-infested Bronx or something. An excellent and pretty mean little ditty. Relational issues are discussed in Faux Fur and Ragdoll, noisy on downturned guitars with harsh rock beatz following the acrid lyrics. And I’ll never know why the somewhat boring Never Home Again clicked with the crew here. It must be the quiet, softly grinding, melancholic groove that’s seeping through the innards of this song, high on frugal acoustics and tightly locked vocals.
As for the rest, many of them are punky protest carols such as Get it? and retro-sounding psych rock offerings (I Know I, for example). The last track, We Speak, We Bleed yet again seems to talk about relationships gone sour. And this time My Tongue serves you with some astonishingly melodic, retro-leaning rock with some psychedelic injections that would sit well with Hex A.D.
In the end, My Tongue Is Stuck to the Roof of My Mouth And That Is All I Can Think About is a mixed bag and a pretty moody one at that. A record that forces you to pay attention to the lyrics at the same level than the music itself. Yet, the wordsmithing is often not elaborate enough to really make sense but to the initiated. And that is a pity. But with Emilie Eie fully in charge, the record serves a rich smörgåsbord of rough-hewn emotions, pig-headed ideas, styles, and flavors. A piece that will let the music flow wherever the theme of the track takes it. And that imbues this relatively short album with a refreshing energy that made us return to this particular well a few times too many.
Record Rating: 6/10 | Label: Apollon Records | Web: Official Band Site
Release Date: 28 February 2025